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Monday, September 23, 2013

The Woman Sits Alone

Bob didn't understand why Marlene liked going to the theater by herself, and Marlene wasn't impressed by Bob's "Themes on Yankee Doodle Dandy" he tried to keep her at home with.

Afternoon Readers,

While I wait for yet another specialist to arrive and give me an estimate on this situation, I thought I'd check in and see how everyone's weekend was. If it was anything like mine, you flipped out on your spouse and, in the few minutes he took to stare at you because he had no idea what you were talking about, threw your hands in the air, grabbed the keys, and pushed that seven seater to the movie theater as fast as it would go.

Oh, you did normal things like clean the gutters and make turkey sandwiches? Odd.

Husband stared at me dumbfounded. "What do you mean you're going to a movie by yourself?"
I buttoned up my cardigan with the resolve of a sailor tying a knot needed to drag a whale back to shore. "When I was single, I used to do it all the time. I'll do it again."

"But it's Saturday night."

"Doesn't matter. I need to get out of the house. Also, I'm taking the movie gift card you got for your birthday last year. If it sits there any longer, we'll have to celebrate its birthday along with your own next year."

"You do what you have to do."

"I will. Because I don't even know what flavor of cake a gift card would want."

It's true, I love seeing movies by myself. Some people find this odd, but dark movie theaters where I can stretch out on two seats and eat a fat pack of Dots by myself have always appealed to me. And yes, it was Saturday night, staple of the dating set, but once thirty's looming and you've been habitually woken up by three children slapping you in the face for the past year, people holding hands and discussing whether they should tell their parents about the rash decision to get "Forever" tattooed inside their kneecaps to mark a three month anniversary of running into each other at the mall food court pales in comparison to the sweet freedom of watching a movie in silence and Raisonettes. Amen. .

"One please."

Greedily, I grabbed my ticket and skipped off into the building. But before I could start shouldering my way to a prime seat, there was a small matter of snacks to attend to.

And I still had twenty dollars left. What joy. What elation. What a perfect connection with the universe.

"Make way. Coming through. Woman trying to stack things on top of her muffin top so she has hands free to hold eight gallons of diet root beer."

The ticket girl handed me back the stub and glanced down. "Those are really cute shoes."

I thanked her but chalked the complement up to the fact I was wearing red Keds and she thought I was a Taylor Swift fan. I wasn't feeling twenty-two, but as I was twenty-nine and carrying a ton of hummus, I made a beeline to my seat.